Slavery, Rape and Fornication Laws in the OT
Slavery in the Old Testament is a difficulty issue, and involves attempting to understand the socio-economic culture of the times in which this occurred.
Headings
PART I: SLAVERY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Slavery AD
There have been slave-owning societies in Africa even in pre-Islamic times, while following that, black slaves exported from Africa were widely traded throughout the Islamic world. Approximately 18,000,000 Africans were delivered into this Islamic “trans-Saharan” and “Indian Ocean” slave trades between 650 and 1905. In the second half of the 15th century Europeans began to trade along the west coast of Africa, and by 1867 between 7,000,000 and 10,000,000 Africans had been shipped as slaves to the New World…. The relationship between African and New World slavery was highly complementary. African slave owners demanded primarily women and children for labor and lineage incorporation and tended to kill males because they were troublesome and likely to flee. The transatlantic trade, on the other hand, demanded primarily adult males for labor and thus saved from certain death many adult males who otherwise would have been slaughtered outright by their African captors. Slavery was overwhelmingly involuntary. Humans were captured by force and sold via slave-traders. This was true both for the Islamic slave trade and the European trade.
I encourage the reader to research this “Trans-Saharan slave trade” themselves, they could go to John Wright’s 2007 book on the issue, the blurb for which states:
“The author uncovers and surveys this, the least-noticed of the slave trades out of Africa, which from the seventh to the twentieth centuries quielty delievered almost as many black Africans into foreign servitude as did the far busier, but much briefer Atlantic and East African trades. Illuminating for the first time a significant, but ignored subject, the book supports and widens current scholarly examination of Africans’ essential role in the enslavement of fellow-Africans and their delivery to internal, Atlantic or trans-Saharan markets.“
Modern- Day Slavery
However most shocking and perhaps least appreciated is modern-day slavery which is global and globally under-reported. The reason is probably the same as the reason why archaic slavery was ignored- the rich cannot dispense with it. The Wall Street article lists the top 10 worst national offenders.
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/11/20/countries-with-the-most-slaves/
This Guardian article gives an idea of the impact of modern-day slavery. An excerpt:
“Of the 24.9 million people trapped in forced labour, the majority (16 million) work in the private sector. Slaves clean houses and flats; produce the clothes we wear; pick the fruit and vegetables we eat; trawl the seas for the shrimp on our restaurant plates; dig for the minerals used in our smartphones, makeup and electric cars; and work on construction jobs building infrastructure for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
Another 4.8 million people working in forced labour are estimated to be sexually exploited, while roughly 4.1 million people are in state-sanctioned forced labour, which includes governmental abuse of military conscription and forced construction or agricultural work. In certain countries such as Mauritania, people are born into “hereditary” slavery if their mother was a slave.
Again, women and girls bear the brunt of these statistics, comprising 99% of all victims in the commercial sex industry, and 58% in other sectors, according to the ILO.”
The Global Slavery Report is a good place to get up-to-date statistics and figures:
https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/global-findings/
Conditions pre- disposing to Slavery and Genocide in the ANE
Ancient civilization had no prison system, which is a modern day invention we have to thank among other things, for 5% of North Americans being incarcerated. Punishments in ancient times, on the other hand, usually required the payment of a fine, or some kind of capital punishment like a whipping or caning or some combination of these. In addition, punishments might be different depending upon your social status. The hapless slave had no way of paying recompense for a misdeed and so one can imagine why punishments for slaves usually ended up being physical. Can we then say that slavery was in a sense, like prison? Consider the similarities: denial of freedom, repayment of debts.
The ancient times that we are referring to in the Bible were quite possibly brutal beyond our conception. War was a way of life, disease was incurable and life short. There are two places in the Bible where it is said that many of the Israelites in times of siege ate their own children out of the desperation of hunger. They and surrounding nations threw children into the fire in sacrifices to appease gods. So we must generally first place all this into the context of a society, which without painting too barbaric a picture, might also have well been quite barbaric in reality.
Also remember that our sensibility is greatly heightened in our anesthetic age where intra-operative pain has been all but banished and even a headache can be shut out with some paracetamol. Contrast this with what sort of pain the ancients would have had to deal with from not having antibiotics for even common maladies like bodily sores or decayed teeth.
Genocide after a battle was hardly a rarity in biblical times, and has been recorded in every ancient civilization. This itself though, is once again merely a manner of dealing with threats and issuing deterrents. The most efficient way to deal with a threat is to kill it. The Israelites were a nation that had escaped from slavery and were undoubtedly surrounded by hostile nations on all sides as they roamed the fertile plains of the Levant, one of the cradles of civilisation. This hardly takes a stretch of the imagination, everyone knows that in the absence of the United States, Israel would be driven into the sea in the twinkling of an eye. Consider that captured peoples and slaves could cause an insurrection, become spies, generally pose a security risk.
There was also the problem of preventing their escape, and providing secure ‘prisons’ for household slaves. There were multiple slave rebellions even in the highly militarised Roman empire. In fact it is said that a third of the Roman population was comprised of slaves! Does one imprison slaves as one does cattle? Back in the day, physical might was literally right. Today, with advanced weaponry and surveillance, terrorism and criminality can be kept in check. The control that the state can exert upon populations is only made possible because of the HUGE advantage that technology gives the establishment over the lay populace. In ancient Middle East, it would be nothing for a three slaves to pick up knives and slaughter the master’s entire family.
But in addition, this was also a culture of war, the business of loot and pillage, of imperialism as a way of life. As it says “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war…” (Sam 11:1), almost in the manner that we might say “in the summer the farmers sow their crops”, or “on a Saturday I go out shopping for provisions”. War was the means of trade, of security, and of survival. The ancient world had not yet developed efficient and more peaceful ways of stealing like the financial system and banking.
This for me is the bottom-line: Slaves were beaten, slaves were killed throughout the ancient world, and slave-trade and war was the norm. War was a way of life in the ancient world, just as slavery was. There were no Geneva and Hague conventions, for treatment of prisoners of war. Prisoners were a labor force, not free guests like we have today. There were vast slave populations in the ancient world, and established slave trading routes and centers. We do not even have to go very far back to prove this. Even before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was imposed upon Africa, Africa was composed of powerful warring kingdoms with a thriving slave trade. The Europeans used the well-established slave routes when they arrived to carry on their gruesome business.
POWs were put to death, period. That way they were less trouble and you didn’t need to pay for feeding them or worry whether they would escape or stage an uprising. Or sold into slavery, that way they could ‘pay for the damage’. Imagine if you went into somebody’s family store and smashed the whole business. Would you then begrudge them if they sold you off to pay for it? In fact slavery for a POW and his family was one of the better options available. What were you to do with all the children then of war? They would be raised up to be slaves too, part of the institution.
Historical Reasons for Slavery in the Ancient Near East?
The definitive work on Ancient Near East (ANE) law today is the 2 volume work (History of Ancient Near Eastern Law, (Handbook of Oriental Studies) – October, 2003 by Raymond Westbrook (Editor), Gary M. Beckman). This work (by 22 scholars) surveys every legal document from the ANE (by period) and includes sections on slavery. A smattering of quotes will indicate this for-the-poor instead of for-the-rich purpose for most of ANE slavery:
1. “Most slaves owned by Assyrians in Assur and in Anatolia seem to have been (originally) debt slaves–free persons sold into slavery by a parent, a husband, an elder sister, or by themselves.”
2. “Sales of wives, children, relatives, or oneself, due to financial duress, are a recurrent feature of the Nuzi socio-economic scene…A somewhat different case is that of male and female foreigners, called hapiru (immigrants) who gave themselves in slavery to private individuals or the palace administration. Poverty was the cause of these agreements…”
3. “Most of the recorded cases of entry of free persons into slavery [in Emar] are by reason of debt or famine or both…A common practice was for a financier to pay off the various creditors in return for the debtor becoming his slave.”
4. “On the other hand, mention is made of free people who are sold into slavery as a result of the famine conditions and the critical economic situation of the populations [Canaan]. Sons and daughters are sold for provisions…”
5. “The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement [Neo-Sumerian, UR III] was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows, selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and grandmother sell a boy…There are also examples of self sale. All these case clearly arose from poverty; it is not stated, however, whether debt was specifically at issue.”
Dr. Joshua Bowen, an agnostic ex-Christian and epert in ANE studies admits in a debate that the majority of debt slavery in the ANE was “volitional”, someone who could find not other means of repaying their debts, then placing themselves and their families at the service of the debtor.
Modern Day Equivalent of Debt-Slavery
One could say that debt-slavery survives to the present day as incarceration for financial fraud/ loan non-repayment, Today debt non-repayment can lead even in developing countries to imprisonment, eviction, repossession or disconnection of services like fuel, telephone/mobile line and so on. Further enslavement of prisoners of war occurred once again at a time when jails and prisoner exchange programmes did not seem to exist.
How were Slaves Treated
There were separate laws for how one treated a Hebrew slave as opposed to a “resident alien”. Hebrew slaves could not be bought and sold, while foreign slaves could. Hebrew slaves along with their families were to be released in the “Jubilee” year which came around every seven years. That would mean that how many years one served depended on when one started in relation to that seventh year. Deur 15:15 states that escaped slaves were not to be returned to their masters. It is prohibited to treat one’s Hebrew slaves harshly, while harsh treatment of an alien who has become a slave is not prohibited (Leviticus 25). Further the alien slaves were treated as “property” and they and their children could be passed on as the family inheritance. There are other verses that command kind treatment toward resident aliens, though without specifying if this is to extend to the slaves as: Deuteronomy 10:19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Lev 19:34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed. Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today. Deut 15.13-15
Violence against slaves
In some ANE codes, a master could literally put out the eyes of his slaves.
If a man hits a manservant or maidservant in the eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the eye. And if he knocks out the tooth of a manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the tooth. (Ex 21.26-27).
The law allowed disciplinary rod-beating for a servant, apparently under the same conditions as that for free men:
If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the other gets up and walks around outside with his staff; however, he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed.
If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. (Ex 21.20)
Free men could likewise be punished by the legal system by rod-beating (Deut 25.1-3; Prov 10.13; 26.3), as could rebellious older sons (Prov 13.24; 22.15; 23.13). Beating by rod (shevet) is the same act/instrument ( flogging (2 Sam 7.14; Ps 89.32). This verse is in parallel to verses 18-19.
Protections for Slaves
“According to Deuteronomy, a runaway slave is not to be returned to its master. He should be sheltered if he wishes or allowed to go free, and he must not be taken advantage of (Deut 23:16-17). This provision is strikingly different from the laws of slavery in the surrounding nations and is explained as due to Israel’s own history as slaves” [HI:HANEL:2:1006]
He who pampers his slave from childhood Will in the end find him to be a son. (Proverbs 29:21)
Do not slander a slave to his master, Or he will curse you and you will be found guilty. (Proverbs 30:10)
Laws about treatment of the Poor
The poor were to be exempt from being charged interest, and were given food without cost:
“If one of your countrymen (“kin”) becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. (Lev 25.35ff; note that interest rates were the dominant cause of voluntary servitude in the ANE.]
The entire Levitical tithe of EVERY THIRD YEAR was to be shared with the poor!
“At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deut 14.28ff)
“When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.” (Deut 24.21,22)
Female Slaves and Family Relations Among Slaves
Freed Slave could not keep a “Given” Wife or Children therefrom
“If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.” (Ex 21.3,4)
This means that the owner paid for the servant girl himself (at typical prices of at least one-third to one-half of all the labor output the male slave would have generated in his 6-year tenure), or, if she was born in the household, then the owner had been paying all her support costs for years and years, with little economic value–given marriage age was around 12-14 (the support costs being considerably more than the male slaves output). (“If, however, his wife has married him during his servitude, obviously by the permission and through the provision of his owner, both the wife and any children born to such a union must remain with the owner when the “temporary” slave claims his freedom of the seventh year.”)
Now, normally, this male servant would have to pay the mohar (bride-price, bride-present) for the wife, but he obviously doesn’t have such resources in his circumstances. This means one of two things: (1) the bride-price must be paid after his release; or (2) the marriage is not a ‘real’ one, but a siring (like concubines sometimes functioned) to help populate the household.
In the ancient Near East is was a common practice for a master to mate a slave with a foreign bondwoman solely for the purpose of siring ‘house born’ slaves. In such instances, no matrimonial or emotional bond was necessarily involved, and the woman and her offspring remained the property of the master (e.g., Gen 17.12,13, 23, 27;Lev 22.11; Jer 2.14.; Cf Gen 14.14; 15.3; Eccs 2.7)
Family Status of Slaves?
These are examples of how slaves were integrated and accorded equality within families, ostensibly at least on the Sabbath and the festival days:
“Then to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name — there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the LORD. And there rejoice before the LORD your God, you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants… (Deut 12.11,12f).
`No one outside a priest’s family may eat the sacred offering, nor may the guest of a priest or his hired worker eat it. But if a priest buys a slave with money, or if a slave is born in his household, that slave may eat his food. (Lev 22.10,11)
Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt…
Female slaves
“Female slaves were treated differently. Many times female slaves were concubines or secondary wives (cf. Gen. 16:3; 22:24; 30:3, 9; 36:12; Jud. 8:31; 9:18). Some Hebrew fathers thought it more advantageous for their daughters to become concubines of well-to-do neighbors than to become the wives of men in their own social class.” (Ex 21.3)
But in effect, there were different social and financial structures in that day, which we do not have in ours. For example, there is a position for a woman which is “concubinage”, which seems to be a second-class wife perhaps. So when a man “sells his daughter as a slave”, it is like giving her away as a wife with a dowry in a sort of polygamous society, and under that financial system. It’s really hard to extrapolate that to our own notions of marriage today, remember that our notion of monogamy is essentially a Christian institution and a grace from God, which we see stated by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
“When a daughter was sold into slavery by her father, this was intended both as a payment of debt and as a way of obtaining a husband for her without a dowry. She has more rights than a male in the sense that she can be freed from slavery if her master does not provide her with food, clothing and marital rights.
If a daughter who became a servant was not pleasing to her master she was to be redeemed by a near kinsman (cf. Lev. 25:47-54) but never sold to foreigners (Ex. 21:8); she could also redeem herself. If she married her master’s son she was to be given family status (v. 9). If the master married someone else he was required to provide his servant with three essentials: food, clothing, and shelter. (Ex 21.3)
“The expectation of seventh-year release was denied to women… Though an owner may be unhappy with a female slave he has bought for himself, he is to permit her to be freed by the payment of a price, apparently by her family, or he is to make provision for her to remain within his own family, perhaps as a daughter-in-law. Despite his own dissatisfaction with her, he has no right to sell her to “a strange family”, a family unknown to her, perhaps even one outside the covenant community of Israel. If he keeps her within his own family, yet takes another woman as his own wife or concubine, he is not to deny her the basic rights which his purchase of her for himself guaranteed in the first place. … If the owner refuses to provide the female slave with these fundamental rights, he waives his claim of possession, and she is free to go her own way. The provisions here stipulated for such a woman make it very likely that she was not sold into slavery for general purposes, but only as a bride, and therefore with provisions restricting her owner-husband concerning her welfare if he should become dissatisfied with the union. Mendelsohn has cited Nuzian sale contracts which almost exactly parallel the Exodus provisions.
Female Captives
There is a verse which comes up a lot in polemical discussions:
““Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp.14Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them.16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people.17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.” (Num.31:15-18)
The objection here is with regard to the virgin women being spared and the rest being killed, “even the animals”. First of all let us set aside the emotional problem of animals being killed unless we are arguing professed vegans. The fact of the animals being slaughtered rather than being used for dinner is obviously pointing to the object of the whole teaching- ritual purity. Everything that is associated with that country and its practices is seen as impure and as having the potential of contaminating the people of Israel by drawing then into the practices of those peoples, as is alluded to in the passage itself. Michael Heiser points out that many of these ancient near-eastern nations would have have sexual fertility rituals, and these women would likely have been part of them, hence the potential to draw the Israelite men into such practices as well. Lastly he points out that putting an end to dynastic lines just was the practise in those days. The Law of Moses was not aimed at bringing radical change to the culture of that time. Sometimes we have objectors state their abhorrence at these laws and still find it hard to believe that Jesus would change them. But as the late Dr. Heiser says, “these laws were designed to become obsolete”.
Conclusion- “Extreme Capitalism”?
There’s no easy way to see “if you beat your slave with a rod and he is able to get up and walk around in one or two days, that’s OK, he’s your property” or “you can be harsh to your non-Hebrew slave”. It sounds like the ancients, in addition to all the horrors of war, disease and physical pain that they faced, also lived under a horrible form of capitalism with that extra final step – after you’ve lost everything, rather than go to jail or destitution, which is what would happen to you today, you sell yourself too. There seems no easy way to view the prospect of one’s whole family in slavery as appealing, nor that of raising slave-children for one’s master that will never be yours. This parallels the worst dystopias of anything that has been written, of human beings being farmed as consumer products. I’m making absolutely sure that I am not watering down any of the effect of what we are reading in here, but I’m really grateful for this quote which ties the theme together and gives us what I would say is the correct Biblical lens in which it might be viewed.
The Cultural Backgrounds NRSV Study Bible with the commentary written by Craig Keener and John Walton states:
“In Israel then, the institution of slavery was not the result of bigotry or ethnic exploitation. It was an economic relief structure designed to deal with insolvency and its related threat to life and welfare that was all too common in an agragarian society. It was supposed to reflect compassion, not oppression. This does not mean, however that it was always successful or that it was a God-approved institution (the commentary gives various examples where similar and near identical laws are found in other codes of the ANE). God’s interaction with Israel was rarely designed to replace one shape of society with another. God was concerned that whatever the shape of their social institutions, people should live out the holy status that they had been given in association with a holy God.”
There exists in these societies, as there does today, a twisted web of how the financial system works, where lives are part of economic capital and the family bond is a luxury not all can afford or take for granted as their right and due. Just take the example of Abraham turning out his own concubine and son by her Ishmael and we already have very early scriptural precedent of this this. King Solomon had so many partners he would require much of his computational skills just to be able to remember who they were along with a brief bio of each, leave alone remembering if he’d had any children by them (granted he had moved away from God by this point).
Do we see any place in the Old Testament where we get a real onus on family life? Well children are required to obey their parents, but we have to wait for the post-exilic Book of Proverbs before we hear anything about prudence in how they are to be raised (including “spare the rod, spoil the child”). It is not really until the Advent of Christ that a rigorous moral ethical code can be derived from Scripture. At this point we now have enough in Scripture based upon which we can have the indissolubility of Marriage, abolition of slavery, equality of all human persons before God, sanctity of life and the inviolable commandment of Love as the guiding compass for all ethics.
PART II: FORNICATION AND RAPE LAWS
The “Virginity Test”
Duet. 22:20 passage contains the ruling against a lady who is found not to be a virgin on her marriage night. We look at the issues surrounding such a ruling while considering that it is primarily considered with preventing promiscuity seeping into society in the manner that it has today. The passage runs from verse 13-21.
Depending on how the verse is translated, there are either, as I seen it, one or two requirements that must be met before the woman was punished. The NIV does not use the conjunction “and”, while the NIV, NKJV, NETBible do so. The English translation on the Jewish chabad.org does not have the “and” and uses “hazeh” as an intensifier for “not found”; “indeed it is not found”. In the Hebrew there is no “wa” which is the usual conjunction for “and”. I can however see that there might have been a translation difficulty here, because although there is not “wa”, there is also not “ci” would would be the indicative “that”, and so we might have an implied comma which might yet create two conditions. If we accept the two conditions, and I accept that this is tenuous, then we can comment the following:
“If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found” (Deuteronomy 22:20).
First, the charge must be true; second, there must be no proof of the woman’s virginity. The first part indicates that an investigation is to be carried out and the allegation proved; this investigation is then supplemented by the lack of exculpatory evidence. Only then is the woman held guilty. We can therefore surmise that the final judgment was not entirely predicated upon the presence or absence of the evidence. The physical evidence no doubt had important bearing on the case, but the “virginity test” of the cloth was unlikely to be the sole means of establishing the woman’s guilt or innocence.
Now we look at the “virginity test” from a social and historical context:
We often err in understanding biblical situations because we look at the situations from the perspective of modern cultural and social norms. We need to remember that the Law was given to the Israelites soon after they had come out of bondage in Egypt. The instruction of Deuteronomy 22 was given to the people of Israel, a conservative and closed community, about 3,500 years ago. In that time period and in those conditions, what activities could the Israelite girls have indulged in that would have broken their hymens? There were no sports or horseback riding or other activities that sometimes result in a broken hymen. In Egypt, the girls would mainly have been confined to their slave quarters. In their trip to Canaan, they would have stayed near their camps and completed household chores—again without much chance of overly strenuous activity. Hence, the Law’s prescribed test of virginity would have been considerably more accurate than what we might expect, given today’s norms.
With no medical facilities, no gynecologists, no surveys on virginity, and no social or familial leeway to allow for sexual promiscuity, the Israelites had to rely on the test mentioned in the Law. Of course, this “evidence of virginity” was not fool-proof, but under those circumstances, for that time and culture, there was no readily available method of confirming virginity except for the bedsheet of the bride’s first night. As already discussed, the lack of that evidence was not incriminatory by itself. Any charge of impropriety against the bride would have to be investigated fully before a final verdict could be pronounced.
Cases of husbands suspecting their new brides of immorality or infidelity were not common. There is no record that any woman was ever stoned to death on the basis of this law, much less any woman who was unjustly executed due to her hymen being broken prior to sex with her husband.
The verse about a lady being stoned to death if she could not produce evidence of her virginity is oft quoted. The pertinent point is this: God cared about morality enough to issue an edict, and a severe deterrent against pre-marital sex. What option do we have today if a teenage girl wants to embark on a journey of “sexual exploration”? All we have is the threat of Hell. Well, back then there was the threat of stoning.
The Cultural Backgrounds commentary notes that in the Ancient Near Eastern cultures “it was of great value for a woman, her father and her family for her to be a virgin at her marriage” (p.334) and notes a couple of documented instances in ancient Babylonia where such charges were brought by a man against their wives which actually failed, indicating there was a process followed.
Rape and Fornication Laws
“22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. 23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you. 25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her. 28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.”
Verse analysis- Four scenarios
There are four scenarios in Deut.22:22-28 with regards to rape and fornication:
Scenario 1: Adultery with a married woman- death to both
“If a man is discovered lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
Scenario 2: Engaged woman in the city- death to both
If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Scenario 3: Engaged woman in the open country- death to the man only
But if the man meets the engaged woman in the open country and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offense punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor. Since he found her in the open country, the engaged woman may have cried for help, but there was no one to rescue her.
Scenario 4: the Virgin- should marry.
If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged and seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her, he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.”
V.28 is a little contentious and it might well be read as non-consensual sex, meaning rape. However it is curious that there is an obvious case of rape only a little earlier vv.25-27 where the incident occurs in the open country and the woman is not found guilty. This, however is a “woman who is engaged to be married” (v.23), and the offense is deemed to be “like someone who attacks and murders his neighbor” (v.24). Thus the difference is that woman in the former scenario has a husband to go to while the one in the latter does not, and therefore the one that violates her must also take responsibility for her.
Comments:
The main objection here in with regards to scenario 4 (vv.28-29), where the woman seemingly must marry her rapist. The NRSV precludes all the controversy as to whether this is the case or not and simply uses “rapes” to translate “seizes”. But let us consider what might be the aim of these laws. What these laws are concerned primarily with is chastity, preventing casual sexual relationships. A woman engaged who a man “meets with” in the city is to be stoned to death along with the man. It might be reasonable to expect her to have cried for help had the encounter not been consensual: Houses are close, communities are close, the women and children are at home, windows are not sealed as we have today. Were a woman’s screams somehow stifled she should cry out after or make a complaint immediately at the first opportunity and so on. This would also have the advantage of preventing untrue accusations of rape being levelled, as we see today, sometimes many years after the fact.
But the main purpose of the rapist being ordered to marry the woman would be socio-econimic. This from www.equip.org: “…First, the Mosaic Law is hardly about letting a rapist off easy. The consequence for raping a woman engaged to be married was stoning (Deut. 22:25). If the woman was not engaged, the rapist was spared for the sake of the woman’s security. Having lost her virginity, she would have been deemed undesirable for marriage—and in the culture of the day, a woman without a father or husband to provide for her would be subject to a life of abject poverty, destitution, and social ostracism. As such, the rapist was compelled to provide for the rape victim for as long as he lived. Thus, far from barbaric, the law was a cultural means of protection and provision…”
Remember also that we are speaking of a time when sex was not wanton as it is today. This is because communities are close knit and the mixing between sexes and socializing is not unchecked, we see this in tribalistic societies and cultures even to this day, where strict male-female segregation is practised. Further, and I say this sensitively and aware of the emotive issues surrounding this: it seems there might be cases where a rapist truly regrets his actions and wishes to take responsibility for his children, and the ruling provides for this, especially in a society that does not have a prison system.
The late Michael Heiser in his podcast agrees with this sort of view, but also gives an alternate explanation, that ties in scenario 4 with the teaching about rape in Exodus:
“If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.” (Ex.22:16,17)
Christianity does not enjoin a woman to live in an abusive household, as indicated in the Catechism:
“The separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law. If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense.” (CCC 2383)
Appendix- Controversial edicts on Slavery made by the Church
Some of the edicts made by the Roman Pontiffs in the late Middle ages have come under scrutiny and we can examine these here. The relation of the Church to Slavery is an issue that gets asked specifically of Roman Catholicism, being the dominant form of Christianity in the world for the first one and a half Christian millenia.
This is from Crisis magazine in an article by T. David Curp, which originally appeared in the September 2005 issue of Crisis Magazine which is most helpful in this regard:
“Eugenius IV and his immediate successor issued a series of bulls, including Illius Qui (1442), Dum Diversus (1452), and Romanus Pontificus (1455), that recognized the rights of the monarchs of Portugal and eventually Spain to engage in a wide-ranging slave trade in the Mediterranean and Africa — first under the guise of crusading, and then as a part of regular commerce. As Pope Nicholas authorized the Portuguese in Romanus Pontificus:
“We [therefore] weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso — to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit….”
The occasional papal pronouncements against slavery earlier in the 15th century and later in the 16th century sought to regulate particular abuses, but they did not deny Spain and Portugal the right to engage in the trade itself. All of these bulls were issued just prior to and after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople — a calamity so traumatic that, according to Crusade historian Jonathan Riley-Smith, it launched the papacy on a 70-year effort to retake the former capital of eastern Christendom. As Pope Pius II lamented in 1460, these attempts were rarely greeted with enthusiasm:
If we send envoys to ask aid of sovereigns, they are laughed at. If we impose tithes on the clergy, they appeal to a future council. If we issue indulgences and encourage the contribution of money by spiritual gifts, we are accused of avarice. People think that our sole object is to amass gold. No one believes what we say. Like insolvent tradesmen we are without credit.
The Ottomans’ advance on Europe, in addition to its general destructiveness, also saw Muslims taking thousands of Christian slaves each year through piracy, conquest, and the devshirme tithe. As a result, the pontiffs of the day were in no position to refuse Portugal and Spain — two of the few great Christian powers enthusiastic about crusading — the opportunity to develop their economic power in whatever way they saw fit.
Far from being an innocent bystander, or merely silently complicit, the papacy fully participated in the expansion of the European slave trade. This was not a product of greed, but of a thoroughly rational and tangible fear of the consequences of not using every available means to defend a rapidly contracting 16th-century Christendom.
Divorced from the context of a Europe under a tightening Ottoman siege, papal engagement with the slave trade would appear to confirm the worst prejudices of secular critics. Placed within its historical environment, however, what we confront is the lay faithful and their shepherds accepting a real evil — slavery — to avoid their own subjugation to militant Islam.
Slavery in Context: For the Christians of the 15th and 16th centuries, slavery was not an abstract issue. Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian Catholics had coped for centuries with Islamic aggression that had resulted in the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of Christians. Further, condemnations of slavery were not merely pro forma for a Catholic Church that had created two religious orders in the 13th century — the Trinitarians and the Mercederians — for the purpose of redeeming Christian captives.
Nevertheless, tragically, slavery was part of the dirty war that Islam and Christianity waged against one another for centuries throughout the Mediterranean. In the 15th century it appeared that Islam, led by the Ottomans, was on the verge of final victory.
But even if the circumstances mitigate some of the guilt of Rome’s involvement in slavery, it’s a scandal nonetheless. And while the fear — perhaps even the necessity — for Christians to fight this war was real, its sad legacy remains with us.
History demonstrates that our earthly pilgrimage is rarely a straight line to a happier, progressive future; moral advancement is hard-won and easily lost. That the world finds it difficult to see Christ in the Church isn’t simply a result of sin’s blinders. Too often our own grievous faults and failures have become obstacles themselves. We do no service to Christ or His Church by refusing to acknowledge it.”
Jimmy Akin in an open interview on Catholic Answers agrees with this view and explains that this was a practical edict given for the time, and in the circumstances of the Islamic invasions and ongoing threat to the Empires of Portugal and Spain to be able to fight a just war. He mentions the “apostolic authority” in the bull, but it is not intended as a doctrinal teaching, or to change the doctrinal teaching of the Church. As can be seen, it is directed at the “enemies of the Church”.
References
These are some links to useful articles on OT Slavery from other sites:
http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html
http://m.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/305549/jewish/Torah-Slavery-and-the-Jews.htm
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/biblical-slavery/